


hearts too ruthless to break

by grumpeaches



Series: maybe i don't want heaven [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: But if it really makes you uncomfortable you could totally pretend it's entirely platonic, But it was intended to be read as at least vaguely incestuous, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Other, So ignoring it defeats the purpose, The incestuous implications can be ignored
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 23:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6304093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpeaches/pseuds/grumpeaches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The world may disapprove, but my world is only you. And if we're sinners then it feels like heaven to me." — Sinners, Lauren Aquilina</p><p>Some people count time in seconds (minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years), some measure it by achievements and milestones. Ayato doesn't care about the passing of time so much as the way his relationship with Touka changes over time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hearts too ruthless to break

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Touka and Ayato never joined Anteiku and continued their street life.
> 
> I wrote this some time back, but I hesitated to post it for obvious reasons. **There isn't any actual physical incest in this** , but the depth of their relationship and how Ayato sees Touka does transcend typical familial bonds – not necessarily in a romantic manner, but not completely platonic either. Could be read as entirely platonic I suppose, but despite the ambiguity, the incestuous implications are definitely intended, so.

When Ayato was five, Touka was seven and she was his role model. He had always been a terribly meek kid, if he wasn’t hiding behind their father’s leg, he’d be barely peeping over Touka’s shoulder. Touka was much braver than he was, and even though she liked to tease him sometimes, she never made him do anything that he was afraid of doing, content to do both their share of work. He looked up to her more than he ever looked up to their father, and he wanted to be just like her someday.

When Ayato was eight, Touka was ten and she was his protector. It didn’t matter to the young boy whether their father had meant to leave them alone or not, because it didn’t stop Ayato from feeling abandoned all the same. He remembered the promise he had made to his father clearly – _you’re the brother, so you have to protect your sister –_ but he was still so afraid of everything, still too weak to be anything more than a burden. But Touka never faltered. She fought to protect him, carried him on her back when he was too tired to walk, sang lullabies to him when he couldn’t sleep. Lulled to sleep with Touka’s hand in his hair, he decided that he felt safest whenever his big sister was around.

When Ayato was ten, Touka was twelve and she was his teacher. He’d grown a little bigger, a little stronger, a little less scared. Despite being very much still a child, Touka’s drive to protect Ayato had driven her to master the use of her kagune, and her brother had decided that it was time he started pulling his weight in their survival as well. She was hesitant at first, because teaching her _baby brother_ how to kill seemed all sorts of wrong to her, even if it was in their very nature as ghouls to be murderous monsters. But she soon came to realise that no matter how strong she was for her age, she was still a child herself, and the burden of feeding and protecting two growing children was one too heavy for her small, deceptively delicate looking shoulders.

To her surprise, once he had grown out of all his childhood fears, Ayato was a natural fighter.

When Ayato was twelve, Touka was fourteen and she was his equal. They had become a lethal tag team, with a reputation that far preceded them. It wasn’t unusual for orphaned ghouls who took to living on the streets to become rather strong (it was almost a given even, considering the other option was to die), but there was just something disconcerting about two small children tearing an adult twice their size limb from limb in under two minutes. A man had offered them a permanent place to stay, a place to call home, and Ayato had almost laughed because anywhere was home as long as he was with Touka.

They turned him down.

There was a sad resignation in the man’s eyes, as if he had expected their response, and for the briefest of moments Touka let herself imagine a life where she had accepted the offer, had been… _domesticated_. Ayato reached for her hand then, and when she caught the way he looked at her, completely open and trusting and so different from the Ayato that everyone else saw, she decided that she had made the right decision – Ayato was _her_ brother, and there was no one else she trusted, would _ever_ trust, besides herself to take care of him.

When Ayato was fifteen, Touka was seventeen and she was his voice of reason. He was growing taller, and had surpassed Touka in height, even if only by a little. Ayato knew that Touka was much stronger than she appeared and had no doubts at all regarding her ability to take care of herself, but it didn’t stop the surge of protectiveness that washed over him at the thought of anyone even just laying a finger on her. She was the only one who could snap him out of his irrational anger; she would place her hand on his shoulder, reassure him that she was alright through a smile, and everything would be okay. They were born killers, but they didn’t need to be monsters, and Touka was the only reason he hadn’t lost sight of himself. 

It would be a lie to say that Ayato could not remember a time before it was just him and Touka, but for almost half his life, his big sister was the only person he could rely on, and he couldn’t imagine relying on anyone else but her for the rest of his life. She had been a child too, when she had been forced to raise him, but never once had she complained or made him feel like he was a burden to her. His heart swelled with love whenever she glanced over at him with a smile, whenever she tried to pull him into a headlock and ruffle his hair, whenever she hooked their pinkies together as they walked down the street. She was his sister, his everything, _his—_

His.

He couldn’t fathom a life without her, simply because he _belonged_ with her, because sometimes home wasn’t four walls and a roof over your head, sometimes home was a pair of arms and a living, breathing body. Because whenever Ayato shied away from a hug, she’d reach for his face, pulling his forehead to hers and keeping him within her grasp for just a second or two more. _My baby_ , she’d breathe, a soft whisper for his ears only. He felt at peace then, knowing that he was _hers_ just as much as she was _his._  

There was never any doubt to begin with, but now Ayato knew with absolute certainty that all they needed to survive in this cruel world was each other.

When Ayato was nineteen, Touka was twenty-one and she was his whole world.

**Author's Note:**

> The ending feels abrupt, but I decided to stop there because if I wrote any further it would become undeniably incestuous probably, and even though this piece was meant to be read as incestuous anyway, it's purposely ambiguous so that a more... wholesome interpretation was possible. I might turn this into a series to explore the incestuous aspect further though, who knows.


End file.
